KEY POINTS:
Travellers in Europe will find portraits by Sir Anthony van Dyck in all the great galleries. The painter was a great traveller who worked in many countries and his abilities attracted so many aristocratic clients.
One of the most interesting small museums in Paris is the Musee Jacquemart-Andre
on the Boulevard Haussmann. This splendid private mansion, built during the Second Empire, is dazzling in itself and the art collected by the owners is fascinating.
It contains such rarities as an early Renaissance painting by Paolo Uccello as well as work by Donatello, Mantegna and Bellini, and several wonderful Rembrandts.
It also has room for temporary exhibitions, including a show of portraits by van Dyck.
His supreme ability was to confer an aristocratic dignity on all his sitters while retaining at least the semblance of a likeness. Naturally he was in demand to paint portraits of the nobility all over Europe.
Born in 1599, he trained in Antwerp then became assistant to Peter Paul Rubens, a prince of painters. Immensely rich, Rubens ran a huge studio in Antwerp that produced a stream of paintings, often of immense size and composed with great Baroque virtuosity.
Van Dyck absorbed Rubens' assurance and in many ways matched his master's skills. Although he was remembered mostly for his portraits he could do wonderful history and religious paintings and there are rooms devoted to his work in the great galleries of Munich and Vienna.
In 1621 he left Antwerp for Italy, where he worked in Genoa, Venice, Rome and even got as far as Palermo in Sicily. By 1631 he was in London, where Charles I - the only connoisseur king England has ever had - had accumulated a collection of unparalleled quality.
Rubens, a diplomat, preceded van Dyck at the English court as ambassador as well as a painter. Charles valued his services so much he knighted him as Sir Peter Paul Rubens. Before long van Dyck was named as "principalle Paynter in Ordinarie to their Majesties". He too was knighted, hence Sir Anthony van Dyck.
The painter earned his title by painting stunning portraits of the king. Charles I was sickly, weedy, with short legs and a long melancholy countenance. Van Dyck showed him as every inch a king, sometimes putting him on horseback and giving him a great sense of style with his clothing.
The king himself, notably in his dealings with Parliament, was a mixture of duplicity, cunning and mismanagement but in van Dyck's portraits he looked noble, sensitive and powerful.
In the exhibition at the Jacquemart-Andre, one of the most magnificent images is a hugely impressive painting of Charles I in the robes of the Order of the Garter.
The king's head with his long, dark hair falling to his shoulders and the narrow face rising above a rich lace collar is balanced on the great solid mass of dark robes, making the whole image solid and strong. He is seen from below as if the viewer were kneeling down looking up at the king.
There are none of the trappings of kingship except the ribbon and medal of the order and an immense silver star on his left shoulder which adds to the feeling of royalty and solemn weight.
Charles, with his downward glance at his subjects, looks royal but, nevertheless, there is an inescapable melancholy which reminds us that he would end his days on a scaffold outside Whitehall alongside the room with the magnificent ceiling by Rubens.
The Jacquemart-André has three van Dycks and the exhibition is enriched by borrowing from many other great collections. The painting of Charles was borrowed from the state collection in Dresden.
The Louvre contributed a splendid portrait of Prince Rupert, the most famous cavalier general, and his brother and other paintings have come from as far away as St Petersburg and Rome.
The single most handsome female portrait in the show is a portrait of Maria de Tassis which comes from the private collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein. Here we have the archetypical van Dyck: a portrait of a bright-eyed young woman whose lively face seems to be an exact likeness.
The family to which she belongs established the first postal system in Europe but had gone on to be people of great position and wealth.
Her subtle smile is balanced by the spread of fine lace around her neck, the gold and pearls and the jewelled cross on her bodice, the richness of the puffed sleeves on her dress and the expensive bloom she uses as a fan.
This immensely appealing portrait is a triumph of insight and virtuosity and is more than a match for the portraits of Charles II's queen, Henrietta Maria, that also feature in the show.
There is also a self-portrait by van Dyck as a young man, on loan from the Hermitage in St Petersburg. It shows he considers a painter can be as aristocratic as the nobility.
